Fear and Loathing in the Mystery Machine

We were ten minutes south of San Clemente when the putrid green daisy walls of the van started closing in. I recall the fat four-eyed lesbian sweater girl saying something like "are you okay, Mr. Duke? We've got a mystery to solve..." when suddenly the gullet of the garish chartreuse steel beast began to spasm, as if a digestive track readying itself to vomit. I began clawing at my hamstrings and when I turned my head I was looking into the irridescent eyes of a grotesque animal screeching "Ruh Roh! Ruh Roh!" in a hoarse irritating dog-accented gibberish. That's when it things began to turn weird.

I fought off the ether hallucinations and fly swarms and fumbled through my medical bag for my 9 millimeter and another shot of absinthe. I pushed off the safety and casually popped off three quick rounds, through the shag carpet stomach lining of the nauseous steel beast that was consuming all of us, and it began thrashing angrily. The lesbian was screaming, and the two Aryan Hitler Youth were screaming, and the grotesque talking dog jumped into the arms of the whimpering hippie boy. Holy sweet Jesus Christ, I thought, don't these people realize we're about be eaten alive by poorly-drawn Chevrolet? "Nevermind," I said. They would see it all soon enough, after the nightshade cookies and Scooby snack kicked in.

****************************

Hanna and Barbera liked my story on hormone doping at the '72 Laff-a-Lympics and proposed that I cover a Harlem Globetrotters game at a haunted Aztec pyramid in Mexico. They called me to their offices in Burbank. "Jesus Christ, you're killing us here, Duke," Hanna complained when I demanded a $1500 advance for the project. "I've got expense," I said. They relented and arranged for a chirpy entourage to escort me into the belly of the beast. There was the lesbian chick, the blond Palos Verdes neck scarf Nixon boy and his frigid miniskirt girlfriend, the gawky soul patch hippie kid and his paranoid Great Dane. Lost Manson kids all, Squeakies and Leslies and a canine Tex in a puke green van hoping for some Mexican helter skelter. All the better reason to pack a few guns, I thought.

"Like hi Mister Duke, ready to solve some Mexican mysteries?" said the hippie kid in a grating singsong. I was simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the shape of his head. "Fuck that," I said. "We're going to Compton to pick up some supplies."

We backed up the van to the garage of my exploration outfitter, Dr. Tyrone, and loaded the necessary cargo for our insane basketball safari in Baja: twelve mason jars of absinthe-laced Goofy Grape, two pounds of hashish, 450 hits of Wacky Package blotter acid, a tinfoiled brick of pure Mendocino nightshade distillate, a Jif Peanut Butter jar of ether, two gross of amyl poppers, a sandwich baggie of MDMA, seven quarts of Mescal, 112 peyote buttons, two cases of Schlitz, and a new experimental medication Dr. Tyrone called "Tyrone Nitrate." The supension of the vomitous beast groaned under the load and we pointed it toward Tijuana.

*****************************

"Rejus Rist! Rejus Rist!"

The dog started whimpering in paranoid Scooby Smack madness when the two Federales started poking their flashlights into the rear van windows. How long can we maintain? I wondered. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering and making weird sound effects? The lesbian was swatting away at invisible flies and the hippie was in a comatose peyote stare. The two Nixon youths had gotten into the Tyrone Nitrate and were rooting like animals on the van floor. I could probably shoot the two cops, but it would be just a matter of time until the other Mexican pigs tracked us down and fed our corpses to the Baja condors.

"Ola senor," I said, rolling down the passenger window and motioning to the fat one. I reached out with a $100 handshake. "There's one thing you should know. We're going to the Globetrotters game at the haunted Aztec pyramid. That fat homely girl in back, with the glasses? She's a hitchiker we picked up outside El Cajon, a runaway from a wealthy family. I think she is holding drugs."

We tore off south toward Ensenada, the two fat Federales disappearing slowly in the mirror as they struggled to handcuff the fly-swatting lesbian chick.

*****************************

"Keep digging," I ordered, my Glock trained at the hippie's hairy, bulbous head. The Schlitz-peyote cocktail had likely rendered him harmless, but I wasn't taking any chances -- with him, or any chupacabras that might appear in the desert night. The shivering mongrel dragged the limp bodies of the two Hitler Young Republicans one by one across the desert floor. It wasn't clear yet whether they were really dead or just in a Tyrone Nitrate-induced zombie state, but I wasn't in any state to explain them to another Federale. The holes were shallow enough that if they were still alive they could dig themselves out and hitchhike back to the border.

Pa-zing!

The hideous dog jumped out out of the way as I popped a round at his feet. "Ron of a ritch! Rut ruz rat for?" it screeched. "Stop walking on your hind legs," I said. "You're a goddam dog, for chrissakes."

*****************************

Madness and rank paranoia filled my mind as I looked down from the steps of the pyramid to the violently stupid spectacle. A team of lumbering Aztec ghosts is leading the Harlem Globetrotters, 82-6 with six minutes left to go, dunking over Curly Neal and Meadowlark Lemon like they were willing victims in one of their ancient blood sacrifices. I half expected the Aztecs to reach into the Trotters' chests and remove their beating hearts. Christ, I hadn't see such a beating since Sonny Barger took a baseball bat to a mouthy Oakland meth dealer in '66.

But the freak circus on the court is only the start of the snarling insanity. Who put a goddam basketball court in the middle of Mexico? And what the hell were Sonny and Cher and Don Adams doing here?

Mama Cass begins choking on a ham sandwich. The hippie gives her the Heimlich while the stupid dog suits up for the Globetrotters, who suddenly start scoring points. Nobody seems to notice.

*****************************

Me and the dog and the hippie started pulling the masks off the Aztec ghosts. "Like, YOINKS!" the hippie screamed, still half-addled from the amyl.

I should have known. In fact, I knew. I had always known. Those weren't ghosts. They were monsters, the flesh eating monsters of a country half-decayed by greed, stupidity and rot. The Aztec starting five: Nixon, Agnew, Mitchell, Haldeman and Erlichmann.

"We would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling dope fiends," said the evil Yorba Linda bastard.

"See you at the Bob Hope Hell Celebrity Pro-Am," I said, washing down a handful of MDMA with a bottle of Gusano Rojo. I ate the worm.

*****************************

Saturday morning in the late '60s was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe Roadrunner or Johnny Quest or Space Ghost or Lancelot Link Secret Chimp meant something. Maybe not, in the long run ...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in front of that Zenith console color TV eating a gigantic bowl of Quisp. Whatever it meant.

And that, I think, was the handle--that sense of the inevitable victory, and that we were part of it. In the end we would unmask the ghost as the Old and Evil town banker, or kill those evil frogmen in a really cool explosion; our pre-sweetened, vitamin-fortified energy of youth would simply prevail. We were shooting the curl of a beautiful cartoon wave and nothing could stop us, except when our moms would yell at us and then we would have to go outside and maybe ride our minibike around for a while. Now, less than five years later, if you turn on Saturday TV and look at the cheap washed-out backgrounds in a certain way you can see where the wave broke and rolled back, and broke and rolled back, in an endless Xeroxed repetition.

I, too, thought it odd that Thompson would be wielding a Glock in 1973. I even flirted with suspicions that this manuscript was not authentic. However, Dan Rather has checked it out, and assures me it's 100% legit.

You hit on SO many things from my youth in one concentrated story: Schlitz (all my parents ever drank!), Saturday morning cartoons, the hazy drug culture of the early 70's. Amazing. The 5th paragraph was priceless.

Your stories have made me laugh harder than anything I've read or seen since SCTV.

My daughter has been in a deep, dark funk upon hearing of Dr. Thompson's demise. She's twenty seven years old, well beyond that teenage angst thing, but somehow too young to have been touched (I assumed) by Hunter's writings.
Then I remembered... she's MY daughter!... Raised on MY values and foibles and tastes. Hell, we used to read to her from Satre and Wolfe and Kesey while she was in the womb!
I tried to ease her mourning by reminding her of the idiot I became when Dali passed on, and then realised that it meant NOTHING to her.
So I brought up my dear dear friend, Bode, a sweet black-lab/coon-hound mix, who was 15 when she chose to wander into the Clearing Glade Beyond This Road...
...and how I dealt with her passing.
My daughter understood, and understood that I understood her internal agony of losing a VOICE out there.
Hunter, if you're paying attention, I just want to thank you. For touching my daughter so deeply, (which, I think, was your point, eh?) and helping me re-connect with her on a heart level so important as to be way too sobby for a grown man, who wouldn't trade one tear he's shed for ANYTHING!!!
OOOBY OOOBY OO! EE OTT UMM ERK OO OO NOW!

Iowahawk, it was as if HT wrote that himself. What, did you channel him after burning some ganja laced with "T" watching "Where the Buffalo Roam"?

I thought I was the only one who remembered "Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp". Nothing was funnier to me than watching a clothed chimp flapping his jaws trying to get the peanut butter off the roof of his mouth. Well, maybe the Hudson Brothers on the Island of Pagu Pagu, but NO one else remembers that gag..

OH MAN!!! I can't STOP LAFFING!!!! Iowahawk your the best man. SO FUNNY!!!! How do you do it?
I'm sending this to everyone!
You have to be one of the most briliant guys around.
PS I LOVED LOVED LOVED your send up of the Tsunami deal! Heap Big Waves! HAHAHA

It was just after 3a.m. when the I noticed the blog had just been updated and just then the phone rang. I stared at it for a moment, then jerked it off the hook and said nothing. Three o'clock in the morning is not a late hour for some people, but they're usually not the calm ones. Folks who write and update their internet blogs at this early hour are a special breed. So are people that call you then. When a blog's updated at three, you know it's not anyone with a straight job. That's how I knew it was that mad-cap genius of parody, Iowahawk. Christ, he'd been on quite a run lately. 'Chuch', 'what happens in Davos' and now this twisted phantasmagoric kaleidescope of pure parodic genius. There was no sound on the other end of the phone, but I could hear someone breathing.
"Whata ya want?" I finally screamed.
"Luke, I am your father" said the voice, trying to immitate Darth Vader and laughing at the same time.
"What is it!" I screamed.
"Did you see the Scooby Doo piece Iowahawk just put up?" he said.
" Yea, I just read it. Unbelievable isn't it?"
"Heard that bro. So what now?"
"Hell after something like that, you just gotta send him a kudo" I said.
"What's a kudo?"
"F****in Freak!!" I screamed as I slammed down the phone.
Kudo indeed, this was going to have to be a special hat tip to the Madman himself. But what?
This was no time for dithering. If a suitable complement was to be found, it would take at least a case of Grain Belt and two hits of blotter. No time to waste!

By God, you're a genius, Iowahawk! Frank J, Ace, all the rest of them are brilliant, but you're work is in a level by itself. This is just a hilarious work of art, here, like all the rest of your stuff. Keep it up.

A Sonny Barger reference! nice detail, Dave.
Did you consider including a leery Hubert Humphrey appearing out of the pyramid, Lidocaine in one hand, a half-chewed remainder of adrenal gland hanging from his sullen, sweaty jowls?
Right....probably over the top.

PoliPundit"nobody – and I mean nobody, in the confines of Al Gore’s greatest invention, the Internet, can slice, dice and julienne a huge chunk of pure snark into so many little jagged pieces like he can"

Charles Murray, The American Enterprise Institute"Out of nowhere—at least I’d never heard of him—comes a posting by one David Burge on his blog, Iowahawk, in which he tore Krugman’s numbers apart. I don’t mean he found some soft spots. I’m talking evisceration. The post has been flying around cyberspace and has a attracted a lot of flak to which Burge has now responded. I recommend both posts as tours de force on two levels. First, they are saturated with the best kind of Internet irreverence and humor—sophomoric occasionally, lmao funny more often. Second, the guy is a hell of an applied statistician. It’s wonderful: Paul Krugman’s got his mile-high New York Times platform, Burge has an obscure blog. And yet, in the world of the Internet, he can take Krugman down and end up letting a whole lot of people know he’s done it."

Hugh Hewitt"For a lesson on how to argue a complex case in the face of MSM stupidity and/or bias --answer with facts, repittion and careful writing laced with laughs-- read the tutorial prepared by Iowahawk... This is how it is done. Airlift Iowahawk to the Speaker's office."

The Lunatic's Asylum"IowaHawk is God. If you're STILL not reading IowaHawk regularly, then you, Sir or Madame, are a dipshit. One that should be taken out and sterilized with the rustiest of farm implements, so that you may not pollute the gene pool with future generations of little dipshits."

Bookworm Room"Every time I read one of Iowahawk’s satires, I think to myself, 'This is it. He cannot get better than this.' And every time I am wrong, as Iowahawk, over and over, publishes something new that is even funnier than his last outing... In a perfect world, Iowahawk would be one of the most recognized comic satirists in America."

Fausta Wertz"the dance floor started to open and exposed a vast deep pool filled with man-eating sharks. The crowd panicked as a couple fell into the waters and the sharks feasted on them. Without missing a step or loosening his embrace, he led me to the entrance and with a swift move managed to both hit the switch that closed the shark pit and concluded the final dance step. He then said, 'It’s late. I must go tend to my blog.'"

Dan Collins, Protein Wisdom"He is Iowahawk of Typepad
Master of the sparkling send-up
When he posts, then douchebags tremble
Realizing they’ve been skewered
And with no recourse to match him:
Mighty Burge, the Iowahawk”

Amused Cynic"perhaps the best-written, cleverest “F*** You” salute that I have ever seen administered ... I am hereby delivering a James Thurber salute to you, Dave, and popping the top on a 16 oz. can of PBR in your direction"

Daniel Ruwe, Right Minds"The funniest person on the Internet. Every one of his posts makes me laugh out loud. Literally incredibly funny. You have to experience him to appreciate him"

Elizabeth Crum"For an idea of what I find brilliant and loveable in terms of sarcasm, satire and the like, see Iowahawk. He is one of our great modern-day scribes: smart, scathing, derisive, outrageous, and funny like few can be"

Jesse Macbeth"I'd like to take the time to address some of the stuff that I read on the Internet written about me... I got to tell you some of the stuff I saw was really funny. One of my favorites ones was actually the Power Rangers one, that was kind of cool."

Jools Krittindan"Then there’s Iowahawk. I don’t even know what he does for a living, something in Iowa, I guess. Yeah, society would function fine without him. It would just suck more. He gets an estate all his own: Iowahawk, the Sixth Estate."

Cherry River Blog"Yes, this is a crude attempt to gain entrance to IH's hallowed blogroll, and maybe even a blurb-out listing, but I still stand in awe of the capaciousness of mind that Mr. Burge has demonstrated to a barely worthy Web world"

Jules Crittenden"I have received no remuneration or consideration of any kind for this shameless fawning boosterism and free advertising. Nor do I require any. To have been in some small way associated with the global Iowahawk phenomenon is more than most of us can aspire to in our miserable, inconsequential little lives. To bask in its electronic glow is to sense the existence of immortality."

Hot Flashes"The man I’d most likely invite to my bedroom in another life"

Jim Henshaw"Neo-cons may not be as humorless as I thought, as this essay from Conservative blogger Iowahawk will attest. Even if you hate his politics, this is funny stuff"

Dave Bender, Israel at Level Ground (Israel)"Iowahawk is in the side of the wrong business, not to mention residing on the wrong landmass; he needs to get over here quick and start pumping out copy for the major news agencies"

Jules Crittendon, Boston Herald"Iowahawk’s wild, unkempt observations may look like they’ve spent the last three days sleeping under a bridge, and be frightening and smelly up close, but they are conduits of fundamental, irrefutable truth. Much like the drunk who accosts you on a streetcorner and unabashedly proclaims, 'I need money for a bottle of Cossack.'"

Twisted Spinster"Iowahawk sticks the knife in so nicely that you don’t even feel it until everything starts to go dark and fuzzy"

Bill Whittle, National Review"My friend Iowahawk writes some of the most brilliant satire I have ever read. He likes to come across as a beer-swilling gearhead — because he is — but look at this ... simply so that I may bask in its reflected glory"

Rush Limbaugh"I've gotta share with you one of the funniest things I have ever read. It is by the blogger Iowahawk. It is one of the sharpest, most cutting, brilliant satires on these pseudo-intellectual conservatives... I've heard of Iowahawk. I don't know what his leanings are, probably lib, I don't know, doesn't matter. This whole thing is just wonderful, it is just hilarious."

Quid Nimis"I think the reason I don't do Iowa Hawk everyday is the same reason I don't eat ice cream everyday: it's too good. That and the fact that I would have to leave my husband and stalk Dave Burge"

Tim Blair, Sydney Telegraph (Australia)"As Sandy Roberts says: 'When you think of Bhutan, you think of archery.' And when you think of Vettes, Ferraris and Hemi-powered rods, you think of Iowahawk and his LA-bound nitroclan"

Joseph Bottum, First Things"I’m on the board of a literary magazine at a small state university, and, at the board’s meeting this spring, the editor mentioned that he had wanted to reprint the blogger Iowahawk’s hilarious swipe at the archbishop of Canterbury... Unfortunately, the editor said, the magazine couldn’t do reprint it. The legal adviser from the university’s administration had said no—not on the grounds that it was offensive to Anglicans and their archbishop, but on the grounds that it mentioned Islam, and the school could receive bomb threats as a result of publishing it."

Lone Star Times"Between cleaning carburetors and restoring classic American cars, Burge churns out some of the funniest and decisively deadly wit and commentary on the web... Write the Pulitzer Committee and demand Iowahawk should win"

Roger Kimball, Pajamas Media"inspired … I was going to say 'parody,' but really it is far too close to the original to be called a parody. Really, it is like the play Hamlet stages to 'catch the conscience of the King,' a dramatic re-enactment of the very crime Claudius had committed but had yet to acknowledge. It worked for Hamlet; will Iowahawk’s performance work for the rest of us? It is too early to tell. But ... it is more truthful, and far more amusing, than anything you’ll read in the [New York] Times."

Paul Kedrosky, Infectious Greed"I really don't know how best to summarize IowaHawk's you-are-there white-trash treatise... If you crossed Hunter Thompson and Michael Lewis, you might get something this angry and bizarre"

The McMuffins (UK)"Iowahawk and his lovely wife... did not appear to be the psychopathic stalking killers we had been warned about, although that Iowahawk did have a murderous look in his eyes and an unusual amount of froth coming from his mouth"

Blacklake (Hot Air Comments)"I’d say Iowahawk was a genius, but geniuses aren’t generally very clever. Plus, studies have shown that nine out of ten have no idea how to clean a carb. So, statistically speaking, his geniushood is unlikely."

Rand Simberg (Transterrestrial Musings)"Next time Iowahawk beats up on you, just take it. If you try to fight back, it only gets worse. It's like one of those monsters that, the harder you fight it, the stronger it gets, because it actually feeds on your pathetic swats."

Blog Québécois"If Iowahawk ever decides to turn his guns on you, accept your beating with good grace and a rueful chuckle. If you try to fight back, it only gets funnier."

Roger Kimball (The New Criterion)"The excellent weblog IowaHawk summarized some of the thoughts I had... I must also laud David Burge of IowaHawk for his gritty pragmatism. He is no armchair crusader, full of empty imprecations."

Bill Whittle"I've met him, you know -- Iowahawk. 6'7" he is, arms like mighty oak trees, legs like even mightier oak trees: clear grey eyes looking to the far horizon, his lantern jaw set against the approaching storm but yet with a slight hint of a distant smile bourne of many combats won and mortal enemies vanquished.
I stood speechless in his presence at a restaurant in Marina del Rey --- just speechless, weeping silently at the sheer magnetism and force of personality coming off the man in seismic waves; a transcendental, religious experience that kept me awake for a week, as if I had seen the heavens split open in a blaze of orange and purple glory, and all of God's Great Plan revealed.
And when he finally did speak, it was the sound of distant thunder echoing off ancient mountains, a sound that predates mankind's puny schreeching -- a sound that, indeed, is antecedent to the founding of Life on Earth and comes carried through the ether on the shock wave of ancient dying stars. And though he only spoke twelve words during the four hours I stood in his presence, those words are with me still, a perfect dozen seared into my memory, written in gold across the great hall of my mind.
He said, 'HEY, CAN YOU GET THIS ONE? I LEFT MY WALLET AT HOME.'"

Spongeworthy"But no shit, Iowahawk might get up tomorrow, get baked, grab his beautiful wife and ride his moped backwards to a Hells Angel rally, then drink himself into oblivion and fight about 7 crank dealers from the Racine chapter of the Death Jokers all by himself.
Then maybe he'd go home, romance the beautiful wife, build a perfect retro treehouse for his perfect kids, drink a bottle of tequila, prepare a 3-course meal while beating away a push-in home invader and sacrificing him on a makeshift, though historically accurate, Inca altar he built in the woods behind the railroad tracks.
Then he'd sit down and knock out a tremedously insulting Leftist parody that pissed off thread after thread of Kos and DU lunatics, romance the bride once again and fall asleep chuckling.
It's like he's Paul Bunyan and Mark Twain rolled up into one hipster"